Weasleys At War
by Kay Taylor
Summary: Various pairings, seven days, eight Weasley children. A look at war, relationships, and growing up. COMPLETE
1. Monday's child is fair of face

The first of the family, born on the first day of the week, the first day of the month. Bill is the first to go to Hogwarts, the first to become Head Boy. Many years later, he's also the first victim of a long and enduring war.  
  
He was always the handsome one - Molly would show anyone the baby photos with a proud smile - and, when he went to school, he was the one the girls sent singing Valentines to. Tall, and with those heart-breaking blue eyes, the hair that was almost too long for school rules, and that smile - it broke a thousand hearts, and you could almost feel the gloom settle over Hogwarts the day he gave his leaving speech. People had always compared his hair to flame; a comparison so easy it seemed facile. But, back in the days of safety for the Wizarding World, the shafts of sunlight in the Great Hall had lit Bill Weasley up like something made of fire - red hair, red-and-gold Gryffindor tie, the thick burnished gold of the Hogwarts crest behind him. So fair. And he spoke of the dreams of a hundred school-leavers, his strong voice carrying over a sea of upturned faces. Handsome Bill.  
  
Now, ten years after that speech, Charlie goes to visit him every day, bringing newspapers, books, anything he can to alleviate the crushing boredom of the hospital wing. Bill tries to smile, but the most he can manage is a slight quirk to his lips, cracked and dry in the parched air. He isn't vain; he hasn't tried to ask for a mirror.  
  
And Charlie sits on the edge of his bed, reading every subtle emotion in Bill's eyes, because Bill can't move the rest of his face. There's no red hair on the pillow. And every day, after Charlie leaves, he sinks to the floor of the corridor outside the little white room, staring at the closed door. Because even now, with a face broken and ruined from the heat of the fire - the first blow in the Death Eater war - Bill is still beautiful to him.


	2. Tuesday's child is full of grace

Ginny, though, is no less beautiful, when she's grown up and got rid of that clumsy little-girl shyness that had come to her so naturally in a house full of brothers; skinned knees, sitting curled up at the foot of Ron's bed, listening to him talking about Quidditch. After her fourth summer at Hogwarts, the Quidditch league is cancelled; the Dementors have disappeared from Azkaban, and it's no longer safe.  
  
So she has nothing left to talk to Ron about, and sits in the kitchen instead, kicking her bare legs against the cold flagstone floor, writing long letters to Bill that she gives to Charlie when he comes home. She traces patterns in the spilled flour with the tip of her finger, and remembers a time when her mother would bake jam tarts every holiday, sticky and sweet; the Queen of Hearts, Bill had called her once, when she'd eaten so many her fingers were stained red.  
  
When Ron finally pokes his head around the kitchen door to see what she's doing, Ginny is sitting perched on the edge of the table, eating her mother's jam from the jar with a spoon and reading over her letter to Bill. Her checked blue dress is slightly too small for her, riding up above her knees, which still carry pale, pale silver scars just in the hollow of the bone. Remnants of all the times she's fallen out of trees, fallen down the stairs, fallen off Ron's bed in a fit of giggles when he tickled her. But there's nothing little-girl about her any more.  
  
She smiles at Ron as he looks in, and for a moment there's a glimpse of another Ginny; younger, uncomplicated. There's a strawberry pip just above the corner of her mouth, where her lips are curving upward. Ron has to fight the urge to kiss it off. Queen of Hearts.


	3. Wednesday's child is full of woe

When Charlie was younger, so very much younger, he used to crawl into Bill's bed at night and hide under the covers. Not because he was afraid of the dark, or the thunderstorms, or the strange creaking of the Burrow, or any of the other excuses he'd stuttered out in the darkness. When he'd grown old enough, he'd realised that it was desire that made him tangle his limbs around his sleeping brother's body, kiss him softly on the forehead so he wouldn't wake. But he could never find a way to put it in words during the day - as if the sun was sapping all the colour out of his feelings, leaving him with nothing more than a faint want which tugged at his heart whenever Bill looked his way.  
  
It had taken him years to find the words, only to find them inadequate, and realise that Bill understood perfectly without them.  
  
Bill still understands, but he's lying in a hospital hundreds and hundreds of miles away, and Charlie marks his days by counting the hours until he's in that white room again, standing by the bed with nothing to say to the brother who's always been able to see into his heart.  
  
Charlie had thought that Bill - Bill's ruined face - would give him a reason to fight the fight, but in the end it leaves him lacking; because as he adjusts the dragon's harness and clips on the spurs, he can see the way the scar tissue has formed, in his heart and on his brother's lips. He sets his jaw, and tugs on the reins hard enough to hurt. And everything that was once cherished by him - the dragons, flying, the soaring swoop of wings and the cold wind in his hair, the memories of nights in Bill's bed, soft laughter and murmurs in the dark - has been faded and tattered. And everything that was once joy is gone.


	4. Thursday's child has far to go

Ron isn't even the youngest, but that's how he feels - the baby of the family, now Bill is in hospital and Charlie is riding dragons and Percy is at the Ministry of War. He wanted to be an Auror, but the only person who ever told him he was good enough was Harry, and now Harry is gone; he left back in September, taken away by the turning leaves, and isn't even allowed to write.  
  
He wanted to play Quidditch for England, but the Quidditch has been cancelled for almost a year, and so he turns lazy loops and dives almost low enough to touch the grass, his bare feet skimming the dew until they're cold and wet. Up. Turn. Left. Wheel around, and see Ginny watching him from the fence, a leather-bound book resting on her lap. His heart constricts, because she can't be keeping a diary, she couldn't -  
  
And when he kisses her, it's as though he's trying to put the clock back, to the days when they shared a bathtub - curiously innocent, lips just pressing together, and she tastes of apples, faintly sweet.  
  
Ron remembers what it was like to see his best friend go off to war, and have to stay behind. To be passed over, still a little boy, when Harry had become a man, somewhere between his OWLs and his NEWTs, in the dormitory at night, when Ron hadn't been watching. He remembers how it had felt to be standing on the castle battlements and see the night come thundering in, so quiet that it was as if he was the only one who noticed it; the darkness drawing in around their childhood sanctuary, much earlier than anyone had expected.  
  
After Harry had left, Ron had sat on his bed, staring at the pile of clothes he'd left behind. Some too big, and darned clumsily in red yarn. Some too small, and tugging at the seams where too many Charms had been put on. And a single Weasley sweater, in Harry's favourite colour, when Ron had been getting maroon for as long as he could remember.


	5. Friday's child is loving and giving

Business has been slow the past few months - slower than it has the past few years, now Hogwarts is closed up and Hogsmeade is like a twilight town, and the paint on the twins' shop has faded from bright red to old terracotta, the colour of dried blood. Fred sometimes suggests that they close up and move back home, but George is too stubborn for that. He still claims that the Wizarding world needs a few laughs, but the only evidence of it is the three - three! - purchases entered in the ledger for the past week, Fred's handwriting large and looping, like a child's.  
  
Two bars of fake soap. A exploding sherbert fountain. And a set of shrinking robes.  
  
Fred doesn't think anyone will come in that afternoon, because it's so hot outside; stiflingly hot, cracked and shimmering rays of sunlight coming through the dusty windows, casting strange patterns on the floor. He sits on the counter and waits for five o'clock, when they'll flip the sign over to closed' and go to the hospital, taking Bill a bag of Fizzing Whizbees -Charlie says they make him smile, but Fred isn't so sure, because his big brother hasn't been able to smile for quite some time.  
  
George leans back in the chair behind the counter, humming something under his breath. It takes Fred a few minutes to place the tune, then he remembers; it's how they always used to sing the school song, a pace slightly faster than a dirge, with barely-suppressed laughter. He turns around, and George is smiling slightly, tapping his pen against the arm of the chair. And it's a joke pen, but George hasn't realised it yet, and the ink is smudged across his fingers and shirt-sleeves, and Fred is so surprised he laughs out loud.


	6. Saturday's child works hard for a living

There used to be a time when going to work made Percy excited; he'd look forward to the polished wood of the desk, the cup of coffee just within reach, the thick bundles of papers to be read over and considered and reported on. There was something in doing his best, making every task meticulous and thorough, that appealed to him enough for him to stay after office hours, his glasses perched on the end of his nose as he read the day's dispatches in the failing light.  
  
Now, though, it's different - there's no time, and everything he does is rushed and unfinished, yanked out of his hands before he has time to absorb the information, draw conclusions. Paper is shuffled from office to office in a constant stream of rustling pages, and the office elves collide in their mad dashes along the corridors, crashing to earth with the squeaks of small wounded animals. Percy hates it in the Ministry of War; it's crowded, and he shares his office with four others, ever since the headquarters were wiped clean off the face of the earth with one breathtakingly well-placed hex.  
  
He still has to stay after hours, though, and long into the night; his superiors are convinced that this owl, this intelligence report, this bundle of half-scribbled notes will contain the key. _Where are they?_ is the question on everyone's lips and in everyone's heart.  
  
Percy sometimes thinks that one day, he'll walk into the office next door and drop the Greenland folder on the Minister's desk. And tell him: You're not going to find them.  
  
Percy mutters it to himself whenever the next pile of work arrives on his desk, collapsing an already-overflowing in-tray. You're not going to find them. Whenever someone asks him to stay a little bit too long, to come in a little bit too early. You're not going to find them.  
  
Because Death Eaters are too clever for the Ministry; Percy knows that by now. And the only question in his heart is, _when will it be over?_


	7. But the child that is born on the Sabbat...

It's almost six months before Ginny begins to show; and it's Ron that notices first, when she turns around to face him at the kitchen sink, and her stomach is gently curved under her ragged Weasley sweater. She's wearing her hair in pigtails, and her arms are soap-suds to the elbows, and the winter sun is playing off the bubbles in the sink, casting shimmering sparks of light over the flagstoned floor.  
  
he says, dry-mouthed.   
  
And she goes to him, runs her wet fingers through his hair, smelling of lemons and perfume.  
  
Ginny sometimes wonders how she can even think about bringing a child into a world at war. But she knows it's Ron's, and he's the only brother with a smile left for her - and she secretly thinks that the Wizarding World has had enough death, without needing to snuff out another life, like pinching the wick of a candle before the flame has even caught.  
  
When her time comes, she knows she will be in a ward three doors down from Bill, the first victim of the war. And she knows that Ron will hold her hand, like he did when she was recovering from the Chamber; silent as sleep, her little brother, a rock in this storm.


End file.
